Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: One year since the deadly West, TX fertilizer explosion: has anything changed?; New 'habitable' planet discovered!; Environmental justice: air pollution highest in minority neighborhoods; March 2014 was 4th warmest ever recorded; PLUS: 'Bombshell' study ties record CA drought, cool weather in East directly to human-caused global warming... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Sifting through observations from tens of thousands of distant stars, astronomers say they have discovered the first definitive Earth-sized planet that orbits in a habitable zone where water could exist in liquid form — a necessary condition for life as we know it...Experts don’t know if the planet, described in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, actually has water or a protective atmosphere.

The plant, opened in the 1920s, recycles as many as 25,000 batteries a day...[T]he South Coast Air Quality Management District found last year that arsenic emissions from the plant posed an elevated cancer risk to 110,000 people living nearby.

People of color are also exposed to nearly 40 percent more polluted air than whites, according to a University of Minnesota study released Tuesday.... “The main ones are race and income, and they both matter,” Marshall said in an interview. “In our findings, however, race matters more than income.”

A study produced by the University of Minnesota concluded that race is a determining factor in who is most affected by air pollution. Specifically, non-white people breathe air that is substantially more polluted than the air that white people breathe.

Study: People of color breathe air that is 38 percent more polluted than white people’s

The overall message of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s newest report is simple: a rapid shift to renewable energy is needed to avert catastrophic global warming. The science behind that message, however, is less simple.

We’ve reported before that climate scientists had predicted a decade ago that warming-driven Arctic ice loss would lead to worsening drought in California.... The research provides “evidence connecting the amplified wind patterns, consisting of a strong high pressure in the West and a deep low pressure in the East [labeled a 'dipole'], to global warming.” Researchers have “uncovered evidence that can trace the amplification of the dipole to human influences.”

A major climate report presented to the world was censored by the very governments who requested it, frustrating and angering some of its lead authors ...[E]ntire paragraphs, plus graphs showing where carbon emissions have been increasing the fastest, were deleted from the summary during a week’s debate prior to its release. Other sections had their meaning and purpose significantly diluted. They were victims of a bruising skirmish between governments in the developed and developing world over who should shoulder the blame for, and the responsibility for fixing, climate change.

The power plant owners felt it was unfair that the government cared about public health but didn’t care about their bottom lines. More mercury in your air means more money in their pockets. So they sued.

Drilling operations at several natural gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania released methane into the atmosphere at rates that were 100 to 1,000 times greater than federal regulators had estimated, new research shows.

[I]nvesting in renewable energy transmission infrastructure would not only be better from environmental and social perspectives, but it would also be a lot cheaper and give the U.S. a much bigger bang for its energy buck.

Trains carrying crude travel through an unknown number of American cities on a daily basis, endangering countless residents, and safety efforts move slowly and with industry opposition. And Wednesday, the freight rail industry revealed that mandatory safety technology to prevent derailments and collisions will only be installed on 20 percent of tracks on deadline at the end of 2015.

[I]n April 1815, when the eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia cooled the Earth and triggered drastic disruptions of major weather systems worldwide...when relentless bad weather ruined harvests for two and then three years running, extraordinary, world-changing things started to happen. The magnitude and variety of human suffering in the years 1815 to 1818 are in one sense incalculable, but three continental-scale consequences stand out amid the misery: slavery, refugeeism, and the failure of states.

On Tuesday night, BP said that the 'active cleanup' of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill had been brought 'to a close.' Later Tuesday night, the Coast Guard said the response to the spill isn't over yet, 'not by a long shot.'

Irwindale's public nuisance designation gives city officials the authority to enter the factory and install smell-mitigation technology if the company does not make the appropriate changes within approximately 90 days.

Carbon storage has to expand rapidly, or coal burning has to cease, if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.
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Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people's behavior.

Now you might think it would be a no-brainer that humanity would be willing to pay a very high cost to avoid such catastrophes and achieve the low emission “2°C” (3.6°F) pathway in the left figure above (RCP2.6 — which is a total greenhouse gas level in 2100 equivalent to roughly 450 parts per million of CO2). But the third report finds that the “cost” of doing so is to reduce the median annual growth of consumption over this century by a mere 0.06%.

You read that right, the annual growth loss to preserve a livable climate is 0.06% — and that’s “relative to annualized consumption growth in the baseline that is between 1.6% and 3% per year.” So we’re talking annual growth of, say 2.24% rather than 2.30% to save billions and billions of people from needless suffering for decades if not centuries.

What's to "believe" or "deny" when science has never been 100% certain that THE END IS NEAR but they are 100% certain the planet is not flat and still after 32 years of research only 95% certain CO2 could flatten the earth? Don't tell my kids science "believes" as much as you "believers" do. Your eagerness to "believe" is sickening.

To Gore cultists who have the nerve (or ignorance) to say that people who don't buy into the Goldman Sachs owned 'carbon trading' scheme deny 'science'. Two suggestions. 1. this one is just a bit of a moral tale = look up all the videos of Occidental Al telling you all about how NAFTA was needed so you would have jobs now. 2. All you sincere believers in 'science'. Study the N.I.S.T. report (final) and explain how eight floors of building seven at the WTC fell at the rate of acceleration of gravity. In science it's only possible one way. And it has nothing to do with fire. And these 'deniers' are the same ones selling you carbon credits. Now put on your thinking cap and THINK!!

Thanks for stopping by! Your comments are darling! I'm sorry to see, however, that you are rather uninformed about the issues about which you are commenting.

To Gore cultists who have the nerve (or ignorance) to say that people who don't buy into the Goldman Sachs owned 'carbon trading' scheme deny 'science'.

Perhaps you haven't heard, because it's only been about 6 years or so, but there is almost nobody, scientist, environmentalist or otherwise, calling for a "'carbon trading' scheme" since folks like John McCain and Sarah Palin decided they were against it, after being for it.

Those who deny climate change science deny it because they are either tools of Big Carbon or have been scammed by those tools (I'm guessing you're in that second category.) It has nothing to do with the fact that those deniers also happen to be against a conservative-based cap and trade system that most environmentalists were never much crazy about and largely against as well.

In any case, since you seem to have trouble keeping up with facts and stuff --- have you been living in a cave for the past several years, or something? --- I just thought I'd let ya know that, since you seem to be so terribly disinformed about current events.

All you sincere believers in 'science'. Study the N.I.S.T. report (final) and explain how eight floors of building seven at the WTC fell at the rate of acceleration of gravity. In science it's only possible one way.

Is that according to a scientific consensus? If so, would you mind offering an URL which cites that consensus?

In the meantime, since you appear to have confidence in science (whether there is a consensus for it or not), I'll assume that means you share the vast scientific consensus on global warming, that concludes, beyond a doubt, that it is happening, that man is causing it, and that we face disastrous consequences unless we do something to curb greenhouse gas emissions, big time, very quickly. Right?

And these 'deniers' are the same ones selling you carbon credits. Now put on your thinking cap and THINK!!

I already have my "thinking cap and THINK" every day. But you might want to put on your "information cap and INFORM YOURSELF", since you still seem to think that someone is trying to "sell you carbon credits".

Someone is, however, selling you a whole bunch of crap, apparently, and you seem to have been a gullible enough chump to buy it hook, line, and sinker. Congrats! You been played, champ.

Pablo, your mish-mash of demonstrably incorrect assertions on unrelated issues is not the least bit persuasive to people who have actually bothered to study and comprehend the vast scientific evidence that climate change is human caused and is dangerous. Consider educating yourself on the basics of atmospheric science from a non-partisan science source (not a news/opinion but actual science) because your future will be deeply impacted.